Francis's Dreamlands

"That is Francis's Dreamlands, and also the passage from Francis to the Dreamlands. To get there, you need to perform a special ritual or recite a spell."

"How about this? After work today, I'll teach you the ritual for entering, then we can set a time for me to take you there for a look around!"

As they talked, they had already reached the entrance of the Church Hospital. Angela gritted her teeth and decided to take Mr. Arthur there.

"Sorry for the trouble."

Ning Xiuyuan was overjoyed and thanked her sincerely. Having someone lead the way was naturally the best outcome.

"You're welcome!"

Angela forced out a faint smile, her expression somewhat unnatural.

At that moment, as expected, another long line had formed outside the Church Hospital.

However, there was one slight difference: several women holding chickens and ducks had joined the line.

At the hospital entrance, the nine-year-old little nun Eve was holding up a small white dog with an arrogant air, showing it off proudly.

"Look, this is Bai Bai! It's completely recovered! Yesterday, it was almost dead, but thanks to Mr. Arthur's treatment, it pulled through! Sister Angela said that Mr. Arthur is incredibly skilled at medicine. He's going to write a medical book!"

Ning Xiuyuan had just reached the entrance when he heard this. His expression immediately stiffened, and he was so embarrassed he nearly wanted to dig out a three-bedroom apartment.

"You... you told her I was going to write a book?" Ning Xiuyuan gave Angela a resentful look.

The reserved and modest nature of the Zhonghua people made them generally unwilling to publicize things they had not yet accomplished.

"Yes!"

Angela was completely unaware that anything was wrong.

"Hey, hey, Arthur's here!"

"Mr. Arthur, my old hen hasn't laid an egg in three days. Can you see what's wrong?"

"Mr. Arthur, my old goose looks awfully sickly. Take a look and see if it's about to die!"

Several women excitedly crowded over and asked with expectant faces. The stinking livestock in their arms nearly poked Ning Xiuyuan in the face.

Ning Xiuyuan was dumbfounded.

He could compare a sow giving birth to human childbirth and barely deal with it.

But a hen not laying eggs? How was he supposed to know why?

What should he do?

Turn them down?

No. Practice had already proven that being a veterinarian could also serve as one of the supernatural rituals. Refusing now would be easy, but picking it up again later would come at a steep price.

But what if he accepted and failed to cure them?

While weighing the pros and cons, Ning Xiuyuan raised both hands and pressed them down slightly.

"Everyone, hear me out first. Thank you all for your kindness! I'm a physician, and the medicine I've studied is primarily for treating people. I only began trying to treat livestock yesterday. I've discovered that many treatments used on humans work perfectly well on livestock, but that doesn't mean those treatments can always be used to cure livestock."

"Let's take this hen, for example. It hatches from an egg, while humans are born from the womb. It can lay one egg a day, while humans can only carry one child a year. So the medicine I've learned might not be able to treat it at all. However, if you trust me, you can let me give it a try."

After saying this, Ning Xiuyuan hurried into the Church Hospital while everyone was still stunned.

That speech seemed to tactfully leave himself an escape route regarding his ability to treat animals, but in reality, he had openly and subtly praised his medical skill for treating people.

If he encountered livestock he couldn't cure, then sorry, it couldn't be blamed on him. He had studied human medicine.

But if he managed to cure them? Just look—he could even cure livestock. What human illness could possibly stump him?

In short, treating people was his profession. Treating animals was merely something he could do on the side.

With Ning Xiuyuan's current Disease Deceiver fusion level, he truly wasn't afraid of ordinary illnesses.

At that moment, the patients waiting outside the hospital mulled over Ning Xiuyuan's words. Their faces soon filled with uncertainty, and many began whispering among themselves.

Before long, it was time for consultations at the Church Hospital.

The patients who entered in line still took the initiative to seek out Angela and the other veteran physicians. No one went to Ning Xiuyuan.

Only the woman holding the hen entered Ning Xiuyuan's examination room.

The sight made Ning Xiuyuan sigh inwardly.

He had still been taking things for granted, thinking that a bit of eloquent talk could change other people's perceptions.

Despite thinking this, Ning Xiuyuan still did his utmost to treat the old hen.

Of course, his so-called treatment consisted of deceiving and sealing away the old hen's hidden ailments and sub-healthy condition.

He suspected that the reason the hen wasn't laying eggs was probably malnutrition.

It made sense. Even people were struggling to stay fed and warm. How much feed could an old hen raised in the city possibly receive? How many bugs could it find?

"This hen is obviously underweight. I estimate that it isn't laying eggs because of malnutrition. Try feeding it more when you get home."

As the older woman was leaving, Ning Xiuyuan gave her one final reminder.

"All right, all right."

The older woman left, carrying the old hen, still half-convinced.

That day, Ning Xiuyuan once again failed to treat a single person, but he did treat seven or eight animals.

The fusion of Disease Deceiver had also basically come to a halt.

It seemed that spreading his reputation was far more difficult than he had imagined.

At six in the afternoon, the Church Hospital closed for the day.

After Ning Xiuyuan and Angela had dinner, they agreed to meet at ten that night in Francis's Dreamlands.

Before leaving, Angela gave him a special reminder. "Once you enter the dream, stay where you are and don't move. Wait for me to come find you."

Ning Xiuyuan nodded. "Got it."

After night fell, around nine fifty, Ning Xiuyuan, fully prepared, lay down on the couch and began chanting an obscure spell.

After finishing, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The most direct way to enter the Dreamlands was through dreaming.

But it was also the most dangerous method.

The essence of this method was to enter the Dreamlands through the mind-body, one of the seven bodies. Without the nourishment of the "Ether Body," the restorative ability of the "Ether Archetype Body," or the support of the other bodies, the mind-body would be left on its own.

Once the mind-body was injured, it would never be possible to repair it.

That was also the fundamental reason why the residents of the Dreamlands, despite being capable of living forever, feared injury.

For outsiders like Ning Xiuyuan, once the mind-body died, the consequences ranged from losing their "self in the dream" at best to dragging their physical body into true death at worst.

In the former case, if the "Ether Archetype Body" was sufficiently active and powerful, then once the mind-body died, it would reconstruct the mind-body according to the memories contained in its own archetype. However, because of the Dreamlands' influence, that mind-body would permanently lose its self in the dream, never dream again, and never be able to reach the Dreamlands.

In the latter case, the Ether Archetype Body would be unable to reconstruct the mind-body. With the body losing one of its seven bodies, death would naturally follow.

That was also the essential difference between Dreamwalkers and other supernatural beings.

Dreamwalkers could use supernatural power to enter in the flesh. The advantages of that went without saying.

Returning to the matter at hand.

After chanting the spell and closing his eyes, Ning Xiuyuan soon felt his consciousness grow hazy, as if he had reached the edge of a cliff.

Suddenly, his foot missed the ground.

His entire body jolted, and he opened his eyes.

The next second, Ning Xiuyuan's scalp went numb. He was so terrified that he nearly cried out.

He was still in the dormitory, but countless eyeballs had emerged densely across the ceiling and walls.

Vertical pupils, Horizontal Pupil, round pupils... all kinds of eyes, bloodshot, cold, and crazed.

The moment he opened his eyes, every eyeball turned toward him in unison.

The room was also filled with legless ghosts. They drifted through the room like jellyfish made from tanned human skin.

The scene stimulated Ning Xiuyuan's left eyeball into suddenly crawling out of its socket. Countless tentacles braced themselves around the socket, while the enormous eyeball, bearing a pitch-black Horizontal Pupil, swept its sinister gaze across the surroundings.